Hotel Follies

While the board of the San Diego Unified Port Commission considers whether to get into the lodging business by financing and constructing a big new hotel on the site of downtown's Campbell shipyard on San Diego's bayfront, a bankruptcy court is preparing to auction off one of the bay's largest inns. According to an account in Real Estate Alert, Loew's Coronado Bay Resort is on the block for a minimum bid of $90.4 million, with bids due in mid-December. The report says the owner of the hotel, a partnership between Coronado's Citron family and three Japanese investors, couldn't get refinancing on a $75 million loan from Goldman Sachs that came due last December. The publication reports that the Citrons have been trying to quietly unload the resort for at least two years. The eight-year-old, 438-room hotel, managed by Loews Hotels of New York, is said to have an average daily occupancy of 75 percent and earn a net annual operating income of $10.4 million. Average room rate is reported to be $175. The magazine also says that North County's 142-room, 450-acre Lake San Marcos Resort, with annual net operating income of $2.9 million, is also up for sale. Asking price: $34 million. Average occupancy is estimated at 68 percent with an average daily room rate of $89.